I never get tired of watching the IKEA commercial for “Start the Car!!!!!”. One only has to mention this and you know exactly what I am talking about. It is the lady who buys articles from IKEA, sees her bill and thinks they have made a mistake and she runs to the parking lot hollering “START THE CAR!!!” Both Sandy and I have done this in parking lots and each other has laughed so hard.
This week a colleague asked “Finish this sentence. Joy is…” I automatically without thinking wrote “Joy is hearing “START THE CAR!!!!” What starts your joy car?” As we wake this Saturday morning and for many that feeling of joy may be many things or it may be a lack in our lives. But I still ask you “What starts your joy car?”
The Skitguys in the video above stirred something within me. What I love about Advent is that we are not playing pretend. We know the story we will tell. But it never gets old and for me it can never be contained within the Christmas season. The birth story breaks into every day of our lives beckoning a space.
I often wonder what it must have really been like that starry night long ago. Did the birth happen quietly in that cave where animals had settled in for the night? Did the earth shake with joy that caused the Shepherds to look up, that caused the King to look out, that caused Magi to notice the earth had shifted…that maybe stars had aligned? What kind of joy filled that moment in time?
And so how will we allow that life changing joy to break into our world today through us? Has that joy from long ago gone stale in our world? In ourselves? How can we recapture that today? After our cup of tea or coffee of course .
As we greet this day we pray we pray:
O Holy One,
O Dawn of Joy within us…
Break into our lives once more this day.
Kindle in us the mystery we call joy.
Let it take root in our lives and let it be contagious!
We ask this in the name of the one whose cry bought joy. Amen!
